The present invention relates to a traversing method and apparatus for long and heavy articles such as railroad vehicles, containers, large-sized trucks and so forth.
A conventional method for laterally transferring a vehicle such as a railroad car from one railroad track to another employs a traverser which is situated at a specific location. The traverser is installed in a pit which is recessed from the track plane. In transferring the vehicle, the vehicle is brought onto the traverser by being pulled or pushed by a suitable tracting or pushing vehicle and the traverser is moved to the position of the other railroad track, thereby transferring the vehicle to the other railroad track. This method is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 16684/1971 (JP-B-46-16684).
Methods are also known in which the vehicle is lifted by a pair of wrecking vehicles or by means of an overhead crane through wire ropes and transferred to the other railroad track. It is also known to make use of an air bearing.
These known methods, however, involve the following problems or drawbacks.
The first-mentioned method, relying upon a traverser situated in a pit recessed from the track plane, encounters the following problems:
(a) Much money and construction work are required for the installation of the traverser.
(b) The installation space is exclusively occupied by the traverser and cannot be utilized for other purposes.
(c) There is a restriction of the space for installing the traverser.
(d) Since the traverser runs in a pit which is recessed under the ground surface, there is a risk that a person can fall into the pit.
(e) The vehicle to be transferred has to be moved onto the traverser by another vehicle.
(f) When a second vehicle not to be transferred is between the vehicle to be transferred and the traverser, the second vehicle also must be transferred to another track by means of the traverser.
On the other hand, the second-mentioned method which employs wrecking vehicles or an overhead crane for lifting the vehicle encouters the following problems:
(g) The traversing operation is possible only within the reach of the overhead crane.
(h) There is a risk of damaging of the vehicle through collision with obstacles due to swing of the lifted vehicle.
(i) The wrecking vehicle or the overhead crane has to be arranged at least in a pair because the vehicle usually has a large length.
(j) It takes a considerable time for suppressing the lateral swing of the vehicle, so that the transfer to the other rail tracks requires much time and labour.
(k) Before lifting the vehicle, it is necesary to securely fix the bogie to the vehicle body to prevent it from coming off. Alternatively, another bogie has to be stationed on the other railroad track and the vehicle body separated from the old bogie transferred to the other bogie on the other railroad track. Such work is labourious and necessitates another bogie.
In addition, the known methods explained above commonly face the following problem:
(1) In factories for assembling railroad vehicles, the railroad tracks may terminate at the ends of the yards. In such a case, it is impossible to adopt the tact type production system in which the product vehicles are sent one by one, insofar as the known traversing methods are employed.